The Templar

When Mercs first came out the box cover yielded an interesting looking battlemech. Templar was the name, 85tons of Inner Sphere Assault mech. I have always liked the Templar from the day I first saw that picture. Well, today I am going to talk about the Templar and we’ll find out why the Templar doesn’t live up to its promise.

It is really a shame that an assault mech such as this is so weak. I already told you I like the Templar, but I don’t play them much because it dies so very fast. Why is that? Well, lets look closer and see.

At 85tons, the Templar offers a lackluster electronics package; Jump Jets, Lams and Advanced Gyro are all that are offered. Although this sounds like a decent package, later we will see why it needs something more. The jump jets cost 5 tons for this mech. That is expensive but the Templar, in my opinion, needs them too add to the threat. LAMs and AG should also be taken.

When full of ferro armour, the Templar holds just over 16.5tons. I suggest you use it all and leave no area ‘light’ of armour. A stock Templar has many heat sinks because it comes with two Large X-Pulse lasers and 2 Lt Gauss rifles. LXP generates a tremendous amount of heat and those heatsinks are put to good use.

Slots on the Templar are pretty nice, each arm housing a 3-slot omni and a 2-slot energy. Each torso has a 2-slot ballistic and the left torso holds a 2-slot missile rack. Missiles aren’t seen much on the Templar but the slot is there if you need it.

The best use I have seen of the Templar is to make it a jumping RAC boat. It can hold 4 RAC2s or 4 RAC5s. It also makes a decent energy mech loading 2 PPCs and 2 Large Lasers.
I have seen 3 Lt gauss boats and multiple Mini Gauss used on this assault mech. Firepower is not really the problem with the Templar; defense is its biggest problem.

Taking damage in a Templar is very easy to do, everywhere except the arms. That’s good for the arms because most of the weaponry is housed there. The designers of the Templar decided that the arms of this mech (i.e. the parts that take damage) were just to run from the elbow to the end of the barrel. The upper part of the arm was to become part of the side torso. Because the Templar is almost as wide as it is tall, making the torsos that big leads to huge side torsos the get blown out quickly. This assault is built on standard internals, but I don’t think there are many in the side torsos. Almost all shots from a distance of over 500meters result in one of the torsos taking damage unless it is a clean headshot or CT shot. It doesn’t take much to bring a Templar down.

You would think that at 85 tons, it would be tougher than it is, but it is weak. I am not sure, but I think MP2.1 or MP2.1a did a fix on the arm and torso defensive slots, but the side torsos are still huge.

The Arms on the Templar are low slung, meaning that you have to expose much of the upper body to use them and this is generally where most of the weapons are. IF you put a weapon in either side torso there is a very high risk of the weapon being destroyed very quickly from incoming fire.

Because of its shortcomings, I am a firm believer that the Templar needs ECM and specialty armour. Spec Armour would / does add life to the mech in battle and ECM would allow you to close into useful range without being half dead before you get there.

In all the drops with the Blood Pearls in NBT, I can remember only 1 using a Templar. I did manage to drive one in a drop as a Black Knight Merc. I managed to get a kill but I was killed within seconds afterward.

The Templar at a stock speed of 69 is not very nimble, but it does handle ok. The Jump Jets make it easier to get around tough terrain but a pilot must run passive almost all the time because this thing generates a huge radar signal and does not have the speed to evade once it has been targeted.

I have lots of Templar configs but I only use them on no radar or team radar missions or on Solar Dessert for the RAC ability.

Vettie’s View? Its tough to give such a poor rating to a mech that I like so much. I rate this mech at 2 to 2 ½ minutes, poor for an assault. I really like the Templar and I think it has much potential. My hope is that during the testing and adjusting phase of MP3 that the lowly Templar sees some much needed adjustments. Add some internals, make the defensive slots tougher and by all means give this mech ECM. By doing any of these, the Templar just added a minute to its rating, do two of them and the mech goes to useful status, do all the changes and it becomes a serious threat.



Templar of MP3

At 85 tons, the Inner Sphere Templar is looking for a fight. Problem is, once it finds one, it usually doesn’t see the end of it. Too bad really, it’s a good looking mech and it should be powerful, but its not. The mech has had some improvements and it is tougher than it used to be but I personally think it is one of the weaker assault mechs in the game.

From the Factory it comes only with LAMs installed but also offers ECM, Jump Jets and Advanced Gyro. 69 KPH is the set speed with 13 heat sinks installed. The weapons from the factory did not change as it comes stock with 2 Large X-Pulse and 2 Light Gauss Rifles. The Armour on the stock model has slightly improved with 13 tons of Ferro installed, but the armour by no means is full. The center torso is where as the previous versions had it at about 75%.

As you know, I like to strip away the weapons and fill up the armour on a mech to see what we have left to work with. Leaving the LAMs, and doing the aforementioned nets you 16.7 tons fo full ferro and 45.3 tons to play with. On the electronics side, I think ECM and Jump Jets are needed on this mech as well as the pre installed LAMs system. This is a change that MekTek did in a positive way for the Templar, the addition of ECM, something I think it really needed. Doing that leaves you 39.3 tons for weapons.

Looking over the slots it is clear that MekTek did not change the slots. Each arm has a 3-slot omni rack and a 2-slot energy rack. The right torso has a 2-slot ballistic and a 2-slot missile rack while the left torso has a 2-slot ballistic rack. Not a bad selection, however, as with most, the Templar has the biggest weapons slots in its arms. Each arm holds 1.8 ton of ferro armour resulting in 54 to 55 points of damage before these slots are destroyed.

The Templar is small and squatty for an assault mech, but it does have a wide frame. One of the changes MekTek did make was to increase the hit box of the arms and decrease the side torsos accordingly. The Arms hit boxes are now truly the entire arm. The Arms house almost as much armour when full as the side torsos. The wide frame make it an easy target. The arms and side torsos are often the areas to receive damage 1st. The hit box adjustments do make this mech a bit tougher so another + for MekTek.

Configuring the Templar for battle is not an easy thing even tho it has a nice slot selection. The arms are low on the body forcing you to expose lots of torso when firing. Even the torso ballistic slots are not much higher sitting just above the ‘waist line’. Only the missile slot is high up on the torso, but it is not a big enough slot to take any of the Arrow family so a pilot could only take a 2-slot missile if he so decided to put missiles on this mech.

One of CowCrusher’s favourite designs is to switch the armour from Ferro to reactive. Load a LBX5 into each ballistic slot and one in each of the omni slots. With ECM, LAMs and Jumpies, you can nearly max out the Reactive armour shaving a mere .4 tons. This beast will hurt you up close and knock you around out to 700 meters. I like the LBX5. As with most in the LBX family, it has partial damage at full range and full damage at about ½ or less of its potential range. The best thing about the LBX5 is the knock. You get the same knock at 700 meters as you do at 70 meters. Chain these babies because they reload very fast and a hit on an enemy mechs knocks them pretty good. In chain fire mode, it is difficult for an opponent to return fire. I suggest that even with ECM, this config is best used on team only or no radar maps. Sneak up on an unsuspecting mech and chain away.

The tried and true config for the Templar is to load 4 RAC2s, each with an extra ton of ammo, bump up the speed to 74 KPH and let ‘er rip, literally. The RAC2s have a 900 meter range and the addition of an extra ton of ammo means you can fire away at targets and rip away at their armour. Even reactive filled mechs suffer from the constant tearing and sawing a RAC2 or four can do. I suggest putting 2 on one trigger and 2 on another, rotating between them to keep from jamming the weapons. Of course a burst or 3 from all four will certainly eat away at the guy charging you or trying to brawl you.

For those of you out there that like to snipe, the Templar offers a decent layout for you too. Load up two Lt Gauss rifle and two PPCs. I suggest putting the Lt Gauss in the torsos. IF an Arm get blown off, you don’t lose ½ your weapons. This config is a bit hot so you may have to shave some armour to add a heat sink or two, unless you strip some of the electroncs.

One thing I find a bit disappointing with the Templar is that you really have to strip away the armour to get one of my favourite mixes on board. 4 Mini Gauss and a PPC loaded on this mech leave some good sized holes in the armour and the Templar needs all the protection it can get.

For those of you that like to brawl, you can load up 2 AC20s and up to 4 machine guns and still add up to 4 medium lasers or 2 medium pulse lasers. This can get really nasty. If you are comfortable with armour strippage, then you could add a different load out of ballistics for up close encounters. Of course, stripping the Jump Jets nets you more tonnage to use for weaponry as well. Another config for brawling that just came to mind is the 4 RAC5s. That is mean.

Defensively, the Templar is not as strong as many in its class and I think weaker than most. The enlargement of the arm hit boxes and reduction of the side torso boxes did help. My thinking is that MekTek also ‘tightened’ the hit boxes when they re-did them. The addition of ECM helped a great deal in my opinion. This was a mech that screamed ‘hide me’. The rest of the mech is fairly balanced and holds up well. Standard internals help once an arm or side torso is blown out. Reactive armour helps a great deal but it cuts down on the weapons you can take a great deal, or makes the mech very slow.

I mentioned in my early review that I always like the Templar. When I 1st bought Mercs and started playing online, I used them often. I would put 2 Lt Gauss rifles and 2 large lasers on one and go hunting. I learned quickly to turn the radar off. Without ECM, I was a big target wandering around cluelessly on many battlefields. I took awhile, but I learned how to move and hunt without radar. I still got killed a lot but I actually started killing too.

In those days, all the maps were new. Now think about that. Think about the 1st time you ever played Griffon Base, if you can remember that far back. I remember playing on no radar versions at night and just walking around completely lost not having a clue where the base was in relation to where I was. Often I found myself being the last one alive on my team because I had wandered off and gotten lost, only to find my way to the base where there were 4 or 5 surviving defenders just waiting for some juicy Templar Torso to chew on.

Yeah those days were fun, all the maps were new, Tumbleweeds, Griffon, Royal, Defiance, Shoreline and maybe one or 2 more. A pilot did not know where the objectives were nor where all the little nooks and crannies were that allowed you to hide and snipe or ambush. Some of the servers were running a thing called team battle and maps like oil spill and Gladiator Pit would come up. You didn’t know what the heat index was and you were just learning the weapons ranges and effectivity. It was all new and it was all fun.

Its still fun and I certainly enjoy my time in the cockpit. I will use a Templar every once in a while but its not my mech of choice. MekTek definitely made some improvements. If you spend some time with one of these beasts you will find it can be a good mech. The slots allow for many varied configs and uses. It handles well with decent twist and acceleration. Its not the best climber around, but that what jumpies are for (and you guys thought they were for jump sniping! Ha!). I will have to amend my rating on this rig. Before, I rated it at 2 to 2 ½ minutes. I will bump that to 3 minutes maybe even to 3 ½ minutes. It is stronger than before but it is still weak for an 85 ton assault mech.